Introduction

In this project, you will write a program that measures typing speed. Additionally, you will implement typing autocorrect, which is a feature that attempts to correct the spelling of a word after a user types it. GUI is also provided.

You may have fun with full version of this game for a while here. This project is inspired by typeracer.

Important submission notes: This project has three phases. You have two weeks for all of them. We recommend starting and finishing Phase 1 as soon as possible to give yourself adequate time to complete Phases 2 and 3, which can be more time consuming. Check the exact deadline on our OJ website.

Project Structure

To get started, download project materials project2.zip from our QQ group if you don't have one. Below is a list of all the files you will see in the project2.zip. However, you only have to make changes to cats/cats.py in this project.

Note that if you want to add new doctest for your problem xy this time, you should edit tests/xy.py.

cats
  |-gui_files   # A directory of various things used by the web gui.
  |-tests       # Your local `ok` tests for each problem. 
  |-data
  |  |-sample_paragraphs.txt    # A file containing text samples to be typed.
  |  |-common_words.txt         # A file containing common English words in order of frequency.
  |  `-words.txt                # A file containing many more English words in order of frequency.
  |-cats.py     # The typing test logic.
  |-gui.py      # A web server for the web-based graphical user interface (GUI).
  |-ucb.py      # Utility functions for CS 61A projects.
  `-utils.py    # Utility functions for interacting with files and strings.

For the functions that we ask you to complete, there may be some initial code that we provide. If you would rather not use that code, feel free to delete it and start from scratch. You may also add new function definitions as you see fit.

However, please do not modify any other functions. Doing so may result in your code failing our framework. Also, please do not change any function signatures (names, argument order, or number of arguments).

And, check the given tests when you are confused about how some functions should behave.

Phase 1: Typing

We recommand you finish phase 1 in 3 days, which needs 50~100 lines code.

Problem 1 (100pts): `choose`

Implement choose, which selects which paragraph the user will type. It takes a list of paragraphs (strings), a select function that returns True for paragraphs that can be selected, and a non-negative index k. The choose function return's the kth paragraph for which select returns True. If no such paragraph exists (because k is too large), then choose returns the empty string.

Index starts from 0.

After you finish the problem, you can test it with:

# Test your implementation
python ok -q 01

Problem 2 (200pts): `about`

Implement about, which takes a list of topic words. It returns a function that can be passed to choose as the select argument. The returned function takes a paragraph and returns a boolean indicating whether that paragraph contains any of the words in topic.

To make this comparison accurately, you will need to ignore case (that is, assume that uppercase and lowercase letters don't change what word it is) and punctuation.

Assume that all words in the topic list are already lowercased and do not contain punctuation.

Hint: You may use the string utility functions in utils.py.

# Test your implementation
python ok -q 02

Problem 3 (100pts): `accuracy`

Implement accuracy, which takes a typed paragraph and a reference paragraph. It returns the percentage of words in typed that exactly match the corresponding words in reference. Case and punctuation must match as well.

A word in this context is any sequence of characters separated from other words by whitespace, so treat "dog;" as all one word.

If a typed word has no corresponding word in the reference because typed is longer than reference, then the extra words in typed are all incorrect.

If typed is empty, then the accuracy is zero.

# Test your implementation
python ok -q 03

Problem 4 (100pts): `wpm`

Implement wpm, which computes the words per minute, a measure of typing speed, given a string typed and the amount of elapsed time in seconds. Despite its name, words per minute is not based on the number of words typed, but instead the number of characters, so that a typing test is not biased by the length of words. The formula for words per minute is the ratio of the number of characters (including spaces) typed divided by 5 (a typical word length) to the elapsed time in minutes.

For example, the string "I am glad!" contains three words and ten characters (not including the quotation marks). The words per minute calculation uses 2 as the number of words typed (because 10 / 5 = 2). If someone typed this string in 30 seconds (half a minute), their speed would be 4 words per minute.

# Test your implementation
python ok -q 04

Time to test your typing speed! You can use the command line to test your typing speed on paragraphs about a particular topic. For example, the command below will load paragraphs about cats or kittens. See the run_typing_test function for the implementation if you're curious (but it is defined for you).

python cats.py -t cats kittens

You can try out the web-based graphical user interface (GUI) using the following command.

python gui.py

Congratulations! You have finished Phase 1 of this project!

Phase 2: Autocorrect

In the web-based GUI, there is an autocorrect button, but right now it doesn't do anything. Let's implement automatic correction of typos. Whenever the user presses the space bar, if the last word they typed doesn't match a word in the dictionary but is close to one, then that similar word will be substituted for what they typed.

We recommand you finish phase 2 in 5 days, as you will learn how to pruning recursion.

Problem 5 (200pts): `autocorrect`

Implement autocorrect, which takes a user_word, a list of all valid_words, a diff_function, and a limit.

If the user_word is contained inside the valid_words list, autocorrect returns that word. Otherwise, autocorrect returns the word from valid_words that has the lowest difference from the provided user_word based on the diff_function. However, if the lowest difference between user_word and any of the valid_words is greater than limit, then user_word is returned instead.

A diff function takes in three arguments, which are the two strings to be compared (first the user_word and then a word from valid_words), as well as the limit. The output of the diff function, which is a non-negative number, represents the amount of difference between the two strings.

Assume that user_word and all elements of valid_words are lowercase and have no punctuation.

Important: if multiple strings have the same lowest difference according to the diff_function, autocorrect should return the string that appears fi rst in valid_words.

Hint: Try using max or min with the optional key argument.

# Test your implementation
python ok -q 05

Problem 6 (200pts): `sphinx_swap`

Implement sphinx_swap, which is a diff function that takes two strings. It returns the minimum number of characters that must be changed in the start word in order to transform it into the goal word. If the strings are not of equal length, the difference in lengths is added to the total.

Here are some examples:

>>> big_limit = 10
>>> sphinx_swap("nice", "rice", big_limit)    # Substitute: n -> r
1
>>> sphinx_swap("range", "rungs", big_limit)  # Substitute: a -> u, e -> s
2
>>> sphinx_swap("pill", "pillage", big_limit) # Don't substitute anything, length difference of 3.
3
>>> sphinx_swap("roses", "arose", big_limit)  # Substitute: r -> a, o -> r, s -> o, e -> s, s -> e
5
>>> sphinx_swap("rose", "hello", big_limit)   # Substitue: r->h, o->e, s->l, e->l, length difference of 1.
5

If the number of characters that must change is greater than limit, then sphinx_swap should return any number larger than limit and should minimize the amount of computation needed to do so.

These two calls to sphinx_swap should take about the same amount of time to evaluate:

>>> limit = 4
>>> sphinx_swap("roses", "arose", limit) > limit
True
>>> sphinx_swap("rosesabcdefghijklm", "arosenopqrstuvwxyz", limit) > limit
True

Important: You may not use while or for statements in your implementation. Use recursion.

Try turning on autocorrect in the GUI. Does it help you type faster? Are the corrections accurate? You should notice that inserting a letter or leaving one out near the beginning of a word is not handled well by this diff function. Let's fix that!

# Test your implementation
python ok -q 06

Problem 7 (300pts): `feline_fixes`

Implement feline_fixes, which is a diff function that returns the minimum number of edit operations needed to transform the start word into the goal word.

There are three kinds of edit operations:

Add a letter to start,
Remove a letter from start,
Substitute a letter in start for another.

Each edit operation contributes 1 to the difference between two words.

>>> big_limit = 10
>>> feline_fixes("cats", "scat", big_limit)       # cats -> scats -> scat
2
>>> feline_fixes("purng", "purring", big_limit)   # purng -> purrng -> purring
2
>>> feline_fixes("ckiteus", "kittens", big_limit) # ckiteus -> kiteus -> kitteus -> kittens
3

We have provided a template of an implementation in cats.py. This is a recursive function with three recursive calls. One of these recursive calls will be similar to the recursive call in sphinx_swap.

You may modify the template however you want or delete it entirely.

If the number of edits required is greater than limit, then feline_fixes should return any number larger than limit and should minimize the amount of computation needed to do so.

These two calls to feline_fixes should take about the same amount of time to evaluate:

>>> limit = 2
>>> feline_fixes("ckiteus", "kittens", limit) > limit
True
>>> sphinx_swap("ckiteusabcdefghijklm", "kittensnopqrstuvwxyz", limit) > limit
True

You can test your implementation with this.

# Test your implementation
python ok -q 07

Try typing again. Are the corrections more accurate?

python gui.py

Extensions: You may optionally design your own diff function called final_diff. Here are some ideas for making even more accurate corrections:

Take into account which additions and deletions are more likely than others. For example, it's much more likely that you'll accidentally leave out a letter if it appears twice in a row.
Treat two adjacent letters that have swapped positions as one change, not two.
Try to incorporate common misspellings

Phase 3: Multiplayer

Typing is more fun with friends! You'll now implement multiplayer functionality, so that when you run gui.py on your computer, it connects to the course server at cats.cs61a.org and looks for someone else to race against.

To race against a friend, 5 different programs will be running:

Your GUI, which is a program that handles all the text coloring and display in your web browser.
Your gui.py, which is a web server that communicates with your GUI using the code you wrote in cats.py.
Your opponent's gui.py.
Your opponent's GUI.
The CS 61A multiplayer server, which matches players together and passes messages around. It is not running on your machine.

When you type, your GUI sends what you have typed to your gui.py server, which computes how much progress you have made and returns a progress update. It also sends a progress update to the multiplayer server, so that your opponent's GUI can display it.

Meanwhile, your GUI display is always trying to keep current by asking for progress updates from gui.py, which in turn requests that info from the multiplayer server.

Each player has an id number that is used by the server to track typing progress.

We recommand you to finish phase 3 in 3 days. ~50 lines code is needed.

Problem 8 (200pts): `report_progress`

Implement report_progress, which is called every time the user finishes typing a word. It takes a list of the words typed, a list of the words in the prompt, the user id, and a send function that is used to send a progress report to the multiplayer server. Note that there will never be more words in typed than in prompt.

Your progress is a ratio of the words in the prompt that you have typed correctly, up to the first incorrect word, divided by the number of prompt words. For example, this example has a progress of 0.25:

report_progress(["Hello", "ths", "is"], ["Hello", "this", "is", "wrong"], ...)

Your report_progress function should return this number. Before that, it should send a message to the multiplayer server that is a two-element dictionary containing the keys 'id' and 'progress'. The id is passed into report_progress from the GUI. The progress is the fraction you compute. Call send on this dictionary to send it to the multiplayer server.

# Test your implementation
python ok -q 08

Problem 9 (100pts): `time_per_word`

Implement time_per_word, which takes in times_per_player, a list of lists for each player with timestamps indicating when each player finished typing each word. It also takes in a list words. It returns a game with the given information.

A game is a data abstraction that has a list of words and times. The times are stored as a list of lists of how long it took each player to type each word. times[i][j] indicates how long it took player i to type word j.

For example, if times_per_player = [[1, 3, 5], [2, 5, 6]], the corresponding time attribute of the game would be [[2, 2], [3, 1]]. Timestamps are cumulative and always increasing, while the values in time are differences between consecutive timestamps.

Be sure to use the game constructor when returning a game, rather than assuming a particular data format.

# Test your implementation
python ok -q 09

Problem 10 (200pts): `fastest_words`

Implement fastest_words, which returns which words each player typed fastest. This function is called once both players have finished typing. It takes in a game.

The game argument is a game data abstraction, like the one returned in Problem 9. You can access words in the game with selectors word_at, which takes in a game and the word_index (an integer). You can access the time it took any player to type any word using the time function provided in cats.py.

The fastest_words function returns a list of lists of words, one list for each player, and within each list the words they typed the fastest. In the case of a tie, consider the earliest player in the list (the smallest player index) to be the one who typed it the fastest.

Be sure to use the accessor functions for the game data abstraction, rather than assuming a particular data format.

Congratulations! Now you can play against other students in the course. Set enable_multiplayer to True near the bottom of cats.py and type swiftly!

python gui.py

You can open multitabs in a brower to visit your game and test your implementation alone. Or you can call your friend up to compete with you :D

It seems that your gui.py is running in your own brower, then how could they communicate with each other? In fact, gui.pys do not know each other, they are just a client which will connect to cats.cs61a.org's server program. That program will handle all clients requests and response back.

Congratulations, you have reached the end of your second project! If you haven't already, relax and enjoy a few games of Cats with a friend.

# Test your implementation
python ok -q 10

Project Submission

At this point, run the entire autograder to see if there are any tests that don't pass:

$ python ok

Once you are satisfied, submit to complete the project. You may submit more than once, and your final score of the project will be the highest score of all your submissions.

$ python ok --submit

Congratulations, you have reached the end of your second SICP project! You achieve the main body of a interesting game with only ~200 lines python by yourself. You should really be proud of it!

And remember, you can always come back to practice your typing techiques no matter happy or sad :D

proj02: Autocorrected Typing Software